Introduction
Public health is not an easy field to explore, but the last few years have demonstrated its usefulness. Prevention is often far more effective than cure, and public health workers understand their responsibility to the large community they seek to help. Public health is focused on preventive action against the occurrence of serious diseases, and often, workers in this field act as educators. Public health is, thus, at the same time, help, research, advocacy, education, and a way to maintain a high level of health for the community. This area can be closely related to others influencing the community’s life: economics, ecology, and politics. For ordinary nurses, public health is a chance to feel the community’s intentions and understand the problems of people who have not yet become their direct patients in the hospital office. Public health workers act as doctors who are knowledgeable in many areas and have a keen sense of the needs and opportunities of the community. These workers need a professional curriculum that enables them to navigate medical, economic, and social processes and to have an adequate understanding of social and human psychology.
Summary of Teaching Plan
The definition of learning objectives is the core of a professional presentation of material and relevant information. At the moment, the purpose of the training is to train nurses on the topic of public health, balanced between practice and theory (Ros & Neuwirth, 2020). Such a goal includes:
- teaching, creating, and delivering presentations on public health topics (COVID-19, vaccination, alcohol use, drug addiction, pregnancy, and many others),
- studying up-to-date materials confirmed by official medical organizations such as APHA,
- theoretical preparation for working with the community,
- the first walk around this community with a survey,
- compiling brief reports on what they saw.
Other specific goals must be lined up by the particular topics of assignments and discussions. One-and-a-half-hour lessons read to students for 15 months are divided into lectures, seminars, and debates, and several hours of fieldwork are provided separately. After conducting fieldwork, students participate in workshops and discussions on the designated topic. Before fieldwork in the community, they need one or two lectures to prepare. As optional lessons, you can watch films or videos on public health. These films may be documentaries or feature films, or they may be retrospective of an issue (such as the HIV outbreak and the difficulties it causes) and be relevant to recent months and years. To maintain student motivation, it is recommended to offer nurses to watch feature films demonstrating public health problems. These films could be “I Am Sam” (mental problems and parenthood), “Eighth Grade” (sex education), and “The Basketball Player’s Diary” (drug addiction); students may offer any other films or series. In addition, what is essential for RNs is that they need to be allowed to share their unique experience with classmates so that the study of public health is not divorced from reality.
Adequate resources on which students will learn are articles and books relevant to the last five years. In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to the acts and bills on public health adopted in recent years. These bills can be general, for example, related to WHO, and private, adopted within one state. It is allowed to use articles with the American context and any other country’s geographical and social context (What is Public Health? (n.d.). News analytics based on journalistic materials is permitted, as the media describe the state of public health. As part of using these materials, careful criticism of media descriptions of disturbing situations in the community is encouraged.
Epidemiological Rationale
COVID-19 made people aware of the importance of epidemiology and public health when a virus of unknown origin swept through all countries. Public health not only captures the actual state of the disease: the dynamics of growth or decrease, demographic aspects, and the rate of infection (Epidemiology: The public health science, 2019). Public health is often aimed at discovering the fundamental reasons for the spread of the disease. In some cases, it can be called social conditioning, such as early pregnancy or drug addiction. In this way, public health helps to understand the internal connections between the community and the disease, thereby subsequently figuring out how to avoid the spread of the disease.
Qualitative analysis helps to protect other communities similar to the one under discussion of illness or negative phenomenon through medical and other interventions. Such interventions can be social and economic as well as political. Modern public health often indicates that the region’s solution to many financial problems will allow people to lead healthier lifestyles. For example, high unemployment corresponds to frequent alcoholism and drug addiction, as well as cases of violence on the streets and domestic violence against women and children. Economic aspects help mentally ill people receive advanced treatment and not become outsiders to society.
Research in the field of public health strongly links society and the biological aspects of human development. This interdisciplinary approach makes it possible to reduce the spread of such phenomena as early pregnancy. The salvation from the COVID-19 pandemic was the dissemination of complete information on protective measures. It was the merit of public health workers who conducted qualitative research and analysis on the emergence and spread of the virus. With their help, it was possible to overcome the leading waves of COVID-19 and avoid the impact of the myths people created in the media and social networks amid the panic.
Evaluation of Teaching Experience
In retrospect, the overall assessment of teaching should be medium-high, as some initiatives deserve praise while others deserve further improvement and development. Successful initiatives include the organization of debates with nurses and, in particular, the involvement of cinema in the educational process. The teacher managed to keep the students highly motivated throughout the course and sincerely involved in the process. Relatively unsuccessful initiatives include a general plan for balancing theory and practice, as there was a constant bias and a not thoughtful list of materials. Since the teacher planned the course as practice-oriented, it was not possible to construct a multi-level list of texts and literature for study in time. Many specific stories from student practice and fieldwork required a theoretical justification that was difficult to give.
The analysis and evaluation of teaching require deep self-reflection, which forces one to go beyond the boundaries of one’s subjectivity and think about students’ feelings. The students were comfortable working with technical materials; each provided at least one PowerPoint presentation on a topic of their choice. The teacher recommended that some students use programs like Canva to create posters. Posters play a vital role in organizing public health, as they are a creative part of propaganda and danger warnings (Guppy et al., 2021). Visual technologies can help nurses and the community, in general, avoid severe diseases and think about maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The methods of working with students were chosen correctly, and none of them felt disconnected from the process.
Community Response to Teaching
During the course, the atmosphere was friendly and accessible so that students could share their wishes and impressions of teaching at any time. Creating such an atmosphere was the teacher’s inner intention to get as encouraging feedback as possible in the end. Getting feedback during the course would be even more helpful, allowing the curriculum to be adjusted to the student’s wishes. However, almost all students decided to express their impressions and opinions from the course closer to completion.
Students were asked to anonymously answer three to five optional questions about whether they were satisfied with their course. These questions were:
- Do you feel that the material was presented in a comfortable and friendly manner?
- Do you feel that the teaching methods were chosen under the theme of the course and with the audience?
- Do you consider the submitted and discussed materials high quality and relevant?
- Do you think this course could be helpful for nurses who are already familiar with the practice?
- Do you think the information presented will be helpful to you for several more years of practice?
Social networks played a unique role in the student’s response, as the teacher emphasized the courage of people in expressing their opinions at a distance. A short questionnaire was posted in the chat about whether they liked the course. Below, the teacher asked, if desired, to leave comments on what exactly the course liked and what precisely the course was terrible. The students left many words, particularly positive comments about the experience of watching feature films through the prism of public health. At the teacher’s request in the chat, some students briefly described their impressions after completing the course and their total marks.
Areas of Strengths and Areas of Improvement
An important area of ​​strength is being creative by watching feature films and applying what you see to public health issues. It was able to interest students and increase their motivation. In addition, many noted that they would remember this experience for a long time and recommend it to their colleagues and other teachers when continuing their studies. The atmosphere during the course was friendly, because of which the community was not shy about asking questions and was not afraid to look ridiculous. The area of ​​strength is the application of creative information technologies and increased attention to visualizing public health issues through posters.
The teacher should improve the areas of selection of materials for study and the balance between theory and practice. In addition, these areas include the proper conduct of debates and discussions, as this is a unique communication model in the office (Sullivan & Galea, 2019). This event requires careful preparation from the teacher and students, and people must strictly observe the established rules for productive discussion and an ethical attitude.
Conclusion
Public health studies are crucial in recognizing society’s severe epidemics and negative health phenomena. The last years of the pandemic have shown the importance of public health and raised the reputation of specialists in this field. To study public health, nurses must use the latest information technologies and participate in creative tasks. The specificity of this area lies in the close connection of medical and biological aspects with social, psychological, economic, and political.
References
Epidemiology: The public health science. (2019). Science Museum. Web.
Guppy, N., Boud, D., Heap, T., Verpoorten, D., Matzat, U., Tai, J., Lutze-Mann, L., Roth, M., Polly, P., Burgess, J. L., Agapito, J., & Bartolic, S. (2021). Teaching and learning under COVID-19 public health edicts: The role of household lockdowns and prior technology usage.Higher Education, 84(3), 487–504. Web.
Ros, M., & Neuwirth, L. S. (2020). Increasing global awareness of timely COVID-19 healthcare guidelines through FPV training tutorials: Portable public health crises teaching method.Nurse Education Today, 91, 104479. Web.
Sullivan, L. M., & Galea, S. (Eds.). (2019). Teaching public health. Johns Hopkins University Press.
What is Public Health? (n.d.). Web.